Once a month, hold a 2-3 hour session dedicated to reviewing some aspect of a previously held GDI class in depth.
Students get a chance to review prior learning, dig deeper, and practice the skills they learned in the class.
This is a irregularly scheduled event where everyone is focusing on the same topic and learning structure.
- Guided learning
- In a class room setting vs. coffeeshop
- Each session has a defined starting point and desired outcome
- Maybe? Same night of the month (e.g. "First Friday") (or maybe not) This is something to think about; regularity helps folks remember to attend, but spreading it to other nights of the week or possibly weekends could let more people participate. On the third hand, regular scheduling means less logistics around holding the event.
- JavaScript counter
- JavaScript photo gallery
- CSS specificity
- File and Folder structure
- Learning your editor
- Simple command line navigation
- New Project Initialization
- Creating a GitHub remote repository and connecting it to your local project files
- Git Branching, Merging, and Rebasing
- Finding a Hosting Solution
- Exploring cPanel
- Publishing with FTP
- Publishing with other tools
- Using Bootstrap
- Using Sass
- Setting up a WordPress Theme
- Setting up your own server
I think we can easily find folks who can teach all of these things; I can lead sessions on most of them, but I don't think it should be just me.
I think this would be an awesome way to allow GDI students and volunteers to take a chance at leading some instruction, too.
This would be nominally a two hour event, which puts the standard cost at $24. If we dropped the cost to $20 it might make the signup a no-brainer for some people. For each session, the leader will definitely be putting in effort to develop the exercises, so it's worth compensating them. There's also the coordination involved and other chapter resources.
I'm unsure about HQ policy on sponsorships, i.e., how many can be offered, how many can an individual use, etc. How to balance the desire to pay for instructor's time with the desire to be inclusive and embrace diversity?
The way the event would be structured would in a non-lecture classroom setting, where initial instructions and guideance would be provided in a short, 5- to 10-minute talk, ideally without slides. The majority of the time would be working on the exercise(s) as individuals, pairs, small groups. There would be time for discussion and sharing of learnings near the end, and next steps students plan to take to solidify the learning experience and bring it into practice.
Depending on the size of the group, there would likely be a need for a couple of TAs/coaches along with the leader.
We don't have to have all the details nailed down to start this. Some questions about whether it should be the same night each month, how much we should charge, what should the schedule of programs be, etc., don't need exact answers. We can start off with one offering as a pilot program and see the level of interest.
Beforehand, we might want to run a poll providing a set of 4 topics, and a preferred night of the week just to see if anyone responds.